The Department of Health and Human Services has effectively overturned a Trump-era rule by announcing that it will interpret and enforce essential Affordable Care Act protections on the basis of sex to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

“The Biden administration did the right thing by terminating a short-lived effort to allow discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation when seeking health care,” said AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD. “As we said in our letter to the previous administration, the interpretation was contrary to the intent and the plain language of the law. It’s unfortunate that such an obvious step had to be taken; the AMA welcomes this commonsense understanding of the law.”

“This move is a victory for health equity and ends a dismal chapter in which a federal agency sought to remove civil rights protections,” Dr. Bailey said.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.